This invention relates to sheet distributing devices and in particular to apparatuses adapted to separate and sort sheet material as it is fed into the apparatus from different types of reproducing, printing or copying machines.
Prior art sorters and/or collators have encountered many problems. One is that the rapid advances in copy producing machines have made increased demands on sorters and collators. For instance, the speed of a copy producing machine to reproduce a number of like sets of copy materials requires that the sorter have the capacity to accommodate changing work loads. The sorter or collator should be able to increase or decrease its capacity with modular slave units or units in tandem rather than requiring a variety of sizes in individual machines. Additionally, the types and weights of paper used in copy machines may differ substantially and the sorter or collator apparatus must be prepared to handle these differences. The variety of copy sorting jobs sorter-collators must handle suggests they should be modular to the extent that if one unit does not have the capacity the materials can be passed on to a second, third, etc., unit without any loss of time or extra handling of the copied material. While smaller collators or sorters are mainly intended for the office market as a necessary adjunct to office copying machines, the larger sorters and/or collators are more intended for the high production commercial market. That is, a machine with as many as 50 sorting bins in each tower can be used to stack books, brochures and/or catalogues for printers and other large volume, reproducing operations. With a number of modular units in tandem it is possible to print and sort catalogues, for instance, having hundred of pages. Those skilled in the art will appreciate the savings in labor that would otherwise be needed in handle the volume which modren day printing and/or duplicating machines can generate.
Among the prior art references which may be considered with respect to the features of this invention are the following: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,372,922; 3,388,907; 3,572,685; 3,598,401; 3,646,372; 3,652,079; 3,460,824; 3,658,324; 3,467,371; 3,484,101; 3,395,913; 3,497,207; 3,618,936; and 3,649,006. The devices covered by the above list of patents are of interest only and not considered pertinent to the teachings of this invention.